


Prompts for SteelHacker!

by FireSoul



Series: FireSoul's Tumblr Prompts! [18]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M, Timelines are confusing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23445316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireSoul/pseuds/FireSoul
Summary: Steelhacker/Steelstar, whatever we are calling them, these are the prompts I've gotten for them!
Relationships: Nate Heywood/Zari Tomaz | Zari Tarazi
Series: FireSoul's Tumblr Prompts! [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/924543
Comments: 10
Kudos: 42





	1. Somewhere with You

**Author's Note:**

> smoaknsnow6 asked me to do Steelhacker + "Driving or in/around a car"

Zari has lost all track of… Everything.

Time, sense, hell even some of her memories.

Nate parked the car a long time ago. He’d asked if she minded, given that they were just driving in circles in the pouring rain, she only shrugged. She had no opinion. He drove and drove and honestly she didn’t pay any attention to where they were when he finally parked.

Now that she is starting to care and come out of her mental stupor she gives it some thought. The rain has stopped and in the chill of the early-April air it’s left a fog of water droplets on the windshield, obscuring the outside surroundings. The only light she can make out is faint and a deep golden, like a far away streetlight about to burn out.

“Where are we?” She asks, the first words she’s said in hours.

Nate glances over at her before looking back ahead at the windshield.

“Back of my old high school.” He answers, and she makes note of the tired drawl in his voice. “Only person who might think to look for us here is Ray, and he’s off on his honeymoon so…”

So the chances of them being tracked down are slim to none.

“What time is it?”

He shifts in his seat, pulling out his phone from his back pocket because the car has been turned off so long the clock on the dash is blank.

“A little after four.”

She winces. They had had a long day before the old timeline came crashing over their heads. He had been tired before that; _she_ had been tired before that.

Not now, though. She could never sleep now.

“I’m sorry.” She says, “Do you want to call Behrad to come get me so you can go sleep?”

“Nah.” He says with a shake of his head, “I’m good. Rather be here.” He then looks at her carefully, a serious and inquiring expression on his face. “Unless you want me to call him?”

The answer of “no” catches in her throat.

She knows the old timeline is exactly that; old. Old and dead, if not more so than that. It never really happened. Or it did, but then it didn’t. Thinking about it too long has so far been giving her headache, but she understands enough to understand she isn’t going to wake up in it again. Behrad is not dead. He is alive, well, and his biggest worry is how soon Maman and Baba will figure out he isn’t in business school.

And they aren’t dead either.

“Hey.”

As she blinks she feels a tear catching one or two of her eyelashes, she hadn’t even realized she was crying.

Nate reaches over the center console, long since unbuckled, and he wipes the tears off her cheek with his thumb. She doesn’t move, not her head into his touch and not her body away from the console. She sits stock still, even when he doesn’t and shifts himself as close as the console will allow him too.

“It’s ok.” He whispers to her, and as he thumbs away another tear she makes a decision.

He hasn’t changed from the old timeline. He is still the very same man that version of her fell in love with. He’s been vocal since they learned everything a few hours ago that he will wait for her if she needs time to process, but he knows her. He knows not only that her, but he knows this her. He had said at her core he sees the same person in both, and it isn’t one version or the other he loves. He loves both versions. He loves her.

She unbuckles her seat and braces one hand on the center console. She slides herself up and over it until she is curled in his lap with her legs cramped up almost to her chest, her toes tucking into the storage compartment at the base of the door. He doesn’t protest this despite how uncomfortable she is sure it must be for him. He simply lets her settle herself and when all is said and done he wraps his arms around her waist and secures them there.

“Can you just hold me?” She asks, and he responds by pressing a light kiss to her temple.

“Of course.”


	2. Dry Clothes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> constangreentrash asked for steelstar "Just sleep in my damn shirt"

This is not the first time Nate has been stranded in the middle of the woods while on a mission, and he gets the feeling it won’t be the last. It isn’t even the first time he has been stranded in the middle of the woods while on a mission and paired off with a teammate who he – for lack of a better term – has a thing for. It’s not even the first time he has been stranded in the middle of the woods, on a mission, with a teammate he has a thing for, and one of them is drenched to the bone after taking a nasty fall into a lake.

Unlike last time, however, he isn’t the one who fell, though a part of him wishes he were. His heart aches as he looks to Zari, standing mere feet from the fire he’s built with her back to it, her arms folded across her chest and her whole body trembling. At least it’s nearing summer time, so the water their adversaries pushed her into wasn’t cold enough to induce hypothermia and the same can be said for the night air around them. But it isn’t so warm that her 50’s clothing hadn’t included a heavy skirt and a knit top.

“Warming up?” He asks, and she snaps her attention to him, and the movement she makes following sort of looks like a shrug, but he can’t really tell amongst all the shivering.

“Any luck getting hold of the team?”

He bites his lip. “No. Looks like we’re stuck here for the night.”

She makes a noise that would best be described as half whine, half cry. Then she turns around to face the fire, an attempt to dry her front.

He sighs, a million and one thoughts of what to do next parading through his mind. They’re going to have to sleep here, and it is going to take forever for their tiny fire to dry her clothes thoroughly. Not to mention that if she sleeps in those clothes she is likely to catch the flu.

A while ago he had a leather jacket, but that got ripped off by a pricker bush sometime during their foot pursuit with their encore. Still, despite some dirt his white greaser shirt is dry, and on the off chance they’re found by some locals a guy sleeping shirtless will draw a hell of a lot less attention than a woman sleeping naked.

No matter how tempting the thought of Zari naked is.

He shakes his head and peels off his shirt, and as he gets it over his head he sees Zari has turned back around and is looking at him quizzically.

“Um… What are you doing?”

He shrugs, “I figure the last thing we need is you getting sick from sleeping in wet clothes, and I’m assuming you don’t want to sleep naked.”

He holds the shirt out to her, and so she looks between it and him, decision warring on her face. That’s fair. Lately he’s gotten the message he’s been coming on a little strong. He can’t help it sometimes. The more he remembers about whatever timeline they erased the more feelings for her come flooding back.

“Come on.” He encourages, trying to keep his voice as plain as possible. “Just sleep in my damn shirt.”

She looks between him and the shirt for a few seconds more, before finally she takes it and orders him not to look.

He obeys, turning around and trying very hard not to pay much attention to the sound of soaked fabric hitting the forest floor, turning up the leaves as it plops down. Just think about being on the ship, playing Cards Against the Timeline with Behrad, Sara, and Mick, and absolutely no one who he has ever thought about in a capacity greater than friend.

“Ok.”

He turns around, and God help him his throat runs dry. He isn’t _that_ much taller than she is, so the shirt manages to cover her ass but not much farther. Then as if that weren’t distracting enough he can see lying on top of the heap of her wet clothes is her equally wet bra.

Soon as they get back to the ship, he is taking an ice cold shower.


	3. Come Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> smoaknsnow6 asked for Steelhacker "It's freezing, come here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place during Nip/Stuck had the team been trapped through the night.

Sleeping is… a thing.

The power is still out; last Zari knew Sara was staying up to work on a plan. She encouraged the rest of them to get some sleep while they can, though Zari wouldn’t be surprised if Mick were keeping her company.

As for her, she and Nate are keeping each other company. Each other, and the egg.

After a long not-so-conversation that mostly consisted of staring and stuttering at each other and tripping over themselves they came up with the solution to share her bed, and take all of the blankets from his bed and wrap Wiksty’s egg in them like a nest. So here they are, with the egg of their dragon child all swaddled up and settled on her beanbag across the room, them dressed in their warmest pajamas and lying in her bed.

Wide-awake.

It’s ridiculous, really. It isn’t like they didn’t go into his room earlier and have a – very hot - half naked make-out session with the egg sandwiched between them. (They tried having full out sex, but they hadn’t yet thought of the swaddling idea and couldn’t very well let the egg away from their body heat.)

They had been all over each other then, getting as close as they could without damaging the egg’s shell, and then wishing they could get closer. They had also been wearing considerably less clothing. They had shed all their upper layers, they were doing their best to get as close as possible, and now they’re here.

They’re fully clothed in thermals and sweats, under every blanket she owns, sharing her bed… And lying awake on opposite sides of it.

Well, she’s awake. She isn’t actually sure about Nate, she’s been too afraid to look.

But, she probably should.

After taking a second to brace herself she rolls over, honestly expecting to see Nate’s eyes closed and a tiny bit of drool pooling at the corner of his mouth.

But he’s staring back at her.

“Hey.” She whispers, hoping that in the darkness he misses how she stiffens with the surprise of seeing him awake.

“Hey.” He whispers back. “You ok?”  
“Mmhm.” She hums, nodding against the pillow. “Just cold.”

“Yeah,” he breathes out, and even in the dark she can see the outline of his breath hanging in the air. “It’s freezing.” He murmurs, considering the fading puff of breath that comes off his lips with the words. He looks at her after a second, hesitant, but wanting. “Come here.”

It’s an offer, she knows. Not a question, certainly not a command, but something she can take or leave.

She takes it.

She scoots herself closer and settles against him with her head on his chest, their legs quickly tangling up in each other. He puts his arm around her and holds her close, sighing contentedly once they’re settled into one another.

She doesn’t fall asleep still, even if this is infinitely warmer and more comfortable than their previous arrangement. He doesn’t fall asleep either, and soon starts twirling the ends of her hair around his fingers.

“Wat’cha thinking about?” He soon asks, his voice low and breath warm in her ear.

She hums, trying to decide where to start with that question.

“Everything.” She decides on. “Us, Wicksty, Ray, Neron, whether we’re all gonna die here or not.”

He looks down at her, a contemplative frown on his face.

He doesn’t answer, because there is no answer. Instead he holds her tighter and presses a kiss to her hair.

It helps, and strangely enough she finds she is able to take enough comfort in just having him here that she’s able to drift off into sleep.


	4. That Depends (On What?)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> smoaknsnow6 asked for Steelhacker + "Things you said at 1am"

Zari settles herself into the mattress, her head in Nate’s lap and his fingers beginning to card through her hair. She’d missed this while she had been in the totem with her ancestors. She’s been back for nearly two years now, but still, sometimes her mind brings her back there in peaceful moments like this and she remembers to cherish it.

Which is probably why she’s losing her game.

This is what they do at night. She plays on her switch, he watches a documentary on deep space or some other science topic; something he’s interested in but doesn’t already know everything about. Sometimes she watches with him, sometimes not, it never really matters. So long as it’s the two of them she’s happy.

“Hey.” He says after awhile, and when he doesn’t immediately continue she pauses her game and cranes her head up to look at him. “Do you remember that talk we had in the lab a while ago? While we were working on the alien tech?”

* * *

_“Ugh, where is Ray when we need him?” Nate asks as she returns, a mug of steaming coffee in each hand. “I swear, we’re never going to figure out how to unlock these things, never mind use them.”_

_“Hm.” She hums, and that’s all she has to offer, her expertise may be in hacking but so far when it’s come to these weapons she has been utterly useless._

_So, she offers him his coffee._

_“Thanks.”  
_

_“No problem.”  
_

_She takes a sip of her own coffee and claims the seat beside him, laying her mug to rest and then picking up a chipped piece of the casing._

_“Are we still voting no on smashing them?”  
_

_“Ask me again in another hour.”  
_

_She chuckles, still turning the tiny fragment over in her fingers. While she’s doing that he takes a long, greedy sip of his coffee and nearly moans, which only has her grin widening._

_“Oh man.” He says, lowering his mug but not yet relinquishing it. “Seriously. When I die, you are not allowed to make coffee this good for your next boyfriend.”_

_She laughs, “Don’t worry, my next boyfriend won’t have a secret stash of Ray Palmer’s favorite coffee grounds to steal from.”_

_He eyes her, probably trying to determine if she really went into the special stash he keeps for Ray’s visits. She did, and she knows he can see that clearly, but he keeps on drinking._

_“Easy, Babe.” She warns him, still smirking slightly. “We need you awake, not off the walls.”  
_

_He hums, “I don’t know, I think off the walls Nate might be the best thing we haven’t tried yet.”_

_“Yeah, well I think off the walls Nate is the same Nate who broke our last time courier so...”  
_

_“Ok.” He says, unimpressed, and flipping her off.  
_

_They work well past midnight, going on 1am as well as their third round of coffee by the time Zari really starts to feel the fatigue hitting her. She’s taking a break from the weapons right now, searching instead through the files of kids the aliens abducted; looking for commonalties in their day to day lives that could have lead them all to that playground at two in the morning._

_“I can’t believe none of these kids parents knew they were gone until the next morning.” She mumbles, “I mean, I know I’m not gonna be a perfect mom but if our ten-year-old sneaks out of the house in the middle of the night, I’m gonna know about it.”  
_

_He chuckles, looking at her with a grin before shaking his head and returning to whatever he is doing with that screwdriver._

_“And how do you propose to do that?”_

_“Simple. Second-story bedroom, alarms on the front door and first story windows.”  
_

_He snorts again, “We live in a two story house now?”_

_“If you want to live on the ship forever that’s fine by me, kid’s definitely not sneaking out in that scenario.”  
_

_He’s grinning at her, still laughing under his breath._

_“No,” He says after another second, “We are not living on the ship forever. Maybe for a little while after we get married, depends.”  
_

_“On what?”  
_

_He shrugs, and it isn’t lost on her how casual this conversation is. They’ve talked about this kind of stuff before, to an extent, but it was before they were a couple. When they were just friends. The two of them and Ray mostly, but sometimes the others, would talk during these late night work sessions about their own futures. They would say things like “on a mission I’m going to meet a girl” or “I’ll bring my family back and go off to live with them, maybe see you losers on the holidays. Your holidays.” They didn’t always mean everything, 9/10 times they didn’t._

_This is the tenth time._

_Yet, it’s just as easy as the other nine._

_“Couple things, I guess.” He says, “How long it takes us to decide between 2022 and 2044, cause we both want our parents around. And how soon after we get married we want to start trying for a baby. Dammit.”_

_He lets his screwdriver clatter to the floor when it slips violently from his hand. She watches it fall, her eyes lingering for only a second, and then she flips to the next file in her stack._

_“I mean it’s probably the sooner the better on both those fronts.”  
_

_“How do you figure?” He asks, reclaiming his screwdriver and she takes another sip of her coffee while doing some mental math.  
_

_“Well, I’m 38, which is kind of late in the game to start having kids but not like, unheard of. That aside the kid will take nine months, not to mention trying could take a few. I’m not exactly thrilled with the idea of having a baby after 40 but that’s what we’re looking at. Plus every time we talk about kids there’s more than one so if we’re going that route we’re either adopting or we’re having them close together because I am not having a baby after 45. Sorry but I am drawing the line there.”_

_“Don’t worry” He snorts, unfazed by her long explanation. “I don't care if you have them or we adopt them but we are at least in the process of having the last of our kids by the time I’m 45, and technically I’m a year and five months older than you.”_

_“Hmm, technically you’re 26 years older than me.”  
_

_He glares at her, he always hates when she brings that up._

_“What?” She asks, feigning innocence._

_“Don’t say that.” He chides her, and she laughs.  
_

_“What??” She mocks, “I’m just saying-”  
_

_“You are not... You’re trying to make me sound gross.”_

* * *

After that the conversation had kind of dissolved into a “fight” over which of them farts more in bed. He does, for the record.

Ok, she does, but she’s never admitting it.

“Yeah.” She says, “What about it?”

“I don't know.” He shrugs, “I was just thinking... when you said we should get started soon on some of that stuff... I mean my mom doesn’t work and a lot of her good friends are dead, and we’ve been thinking about telling her about time travel for awhile. I was just thinking maybe she could come with us to 2044, get a nice apartment in Seattle. The opposite side of Seattle from where we would live but-”

Zari laughs, cackles actually, and so Nate starts laughing too.

“What?” He asks, tightening his arm that’s been draped loosely around her. “I’m serious.”

“I know.” She says, “And I’m all for it, but the problem is if we live on the opposite side of the city from her that means we live on the same side as my parents, and there’s two of them.”

He shrugs, undeterred. “Then we live on one side of the city and put my mom on the side where your parents live, and that way all three of them can plot against us.”

She keeps laughing. She can just picture that. His mom and hers, meeting up on Saturday mornings for coffee or something else, talking about her and Nate and workshopping new ways to invade their privacy.

“Ok, that’s one problem solved. What about the second one?”

Nate shrugs again above her. “Depends.”

“On what?”

He looks down and meets her eyes, and suddenly she feels his hand worm it’s way into hers; something small, round, and metallic clutched inside.

“Will you marry me?”


End file.
